Uniregistry today said that it sold $29 million of domain names through its Uniregistry Market platform so far this year.

But the company said that average sales prices dipped for the “first time ever” over the period.

The 3,617 names it sold in the first eight months of the year went for on average $8,017 per domain, compared to $9,110 in the same 2016 period.

Average prices had been steadily rising since 2011, Uniregistry said in a press release. It blamed the reversal on “expansion into exploratory, nontraditional markets” — the mix leaning more towards new gTLDs and ccTLDs, in other words.

On the bright side, the total dollar value of sales were up to $29 million from the $25 million in the comparable period. Transactions were up 24%, the company said.

Eight months is an unusual period to report results for, making me wonder whether today’s statement is in response to some recent bad press, but as a private company I guess Uniregistry can report figures for whatever period it wishes.

The numbers, to reiterate, refer to its Uniregistry Market secondary sales platform, not its own cache of registry-reserved new gTLD domains.